Professor Joel Mokyr is an American and Israeli economic historian and the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. He received a B.A. in economics and history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968. He was awarded half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2025 “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.”

Joel Mokyr conducts research on the economic history of Europe and specializes in the period 1750-1914. His current research is concerned with the understanding of the economic and intellectual roots of technological progress and the growth of useful knowledge in European societies, as well as the impact that industrialization and economic progress have had on economic welfare. His most recent book is A Culture of Growth: Origins of the Modern Economy, published by Princeton University Press in 2016.

Among his many awards, professional honors, and distinctions, Professor Mokyr is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the Cliometric Society, the British Academy, the Italian Accademia dei Lincei, and the Dutch Royal Academy. He has served as President of the Economic History Association, Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Economic History. He is currently Co-Editor of the Princeton University Press Economic History of the World book series. He was the recipient of the biennial Heineken Award for History from the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in 2006 and the Balzan International Prize for Economic History in 2005.